Food for thought: Opera? Musical? Please respect the difference

“More than ever,” Anthony Tommasini wrote in the July 7 New York Times, “composers are busily breaking down walls between stylistic categories. Opera in particular has been a poacher’s paradise. We have had folk opera, jazz opera and rock opera. Bono, who collaborated with the Edge on the music and lyrics of “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark,” called the show “Pop-Art opera.” Whatever that means. But of all such efforts, mixing opera with the Broadway musical might seem by far the most natural combination. Then why are so many efforts to crisscross that divide so bad?”